Matt Lucas-lookalike Kevin Shaw was last night booted off The Apprentice and declared: "It's tough but I deserved it."

The 25-year-old bank manager was fired by Sir Alan Sugar for failing the task to sell greetings cards to High Street shops.

But Kevin - ribbed about looking like comic Matt's Little Britain "only gay in the village" character Daffyd-said: "I was the right one to go."

As project manager, Kevin's team tried to find a gap in the market on the hit BBC show. Their environmental theme spectacularly flopped. Kevin agreed Sir Alan made the right decision.

He said: "I wanted to go into the boardroom on my own. If you're running a company, when the business goes under so does the manager. My team lost so surely I must take responsibility for the task."

Asked what went wrong, Kevin said: "The whole task was a disaster... the idea and the pitches were awful."

In the boardroom, Sir Alan told him: "Clinton Cards reported that your pitch was dreadful. Not selling them cards but preaching to them. (There was) a smell of arrogance about you."

But Kevin admitted today: "There is a thin line between arrogance and confidence. Maybe I seemed a bit over-confident?"

Kevin from Woking, Surrey, became a bank manager at 19, bought his first house at 20, his second at 23 - and in the same year also bought a Porsche.

But was he hurt to hear a fellow contestant slam him as having "zero fun factor"? Kevin, perhaps more like The Office's David Brent than Daffyd, said: "Not at all. Because that's completely wrong. I'm always cracking jokes. I was one of the funniest guys there."

Does he regret insisting he was head chef on a previous task after grandly announcing "I regularly eat at Italian restaurants". "Why would I?

Because I do regularly eat at Italian restaurants. Fact."

And he's not bitter about being fired: "The first thing I did when I got home was order lots of business books. Because The Apprentice is all about learning and development, you see. You can turn any negative into a positive if you've got the right business attitude."